Tag Archives: Autumn

Is it autumn already? Should I break out my copy of Keats and dream of mists and mellow fruitfullness, gathering swallows twittering the skies? It’s certainly cold enough. Summer fizzled rather than sizzled in England. Thankfully I spent the first two weeks of August in the hills near Rome, miles from anywhere, finishing off with two days in the Eternal City itself. Rome is gorgeous and was so hot our gelato became ivariably lemonade before we could finish it. To take some respite from the heat, even as the sun was sinking, I visited Keats/Shelley House at the base of the Spanish Steps. I have loved Keats for years, all that melancholy longing, the unfulfilled promise of a life cut tragically short.

Keats-Shelley House is an oasis of Englishness in the middle of a city as bustling and mediterranean as it’s possible to be. Plain and inauspicious from the outside, found only by a tiny brass plate and the directions of our guide book, the steep steps from the front door and the bright ticket office lead up to a darkened library of calm. Books line the walls top to toe, the comforting smell of decaying parhcment and leather binding fills your senses, scholars sit reading in chairs surrounded by paintings and artefacts clebrating the second generation of English Romantics. And it’s quiet, so so quiet. Here you can see Shelley’s hair, paintings by Severn, Byron’s letters and jewellery, the fading handwriting of all. Shelley didn’t stay here, but Keats died in the small room overlooking the Spanish Steps. You can go inside, though all that remains from that time is the elaborate rose ceiling, Keats’s death mask and the original stone fireplace; the room was stripped and it’s contents burned to prevent the spread of the tuberculosis that killed the poet (a futile precaution). The museum exudes sadness but also a certain joy, there is a feeling of immortality, of endurance beyond life. Keats had friends who ensured his name did not die, as if writ in water. And later, the house was bought and dedicated as a museum via a collaboration of American and English literati.

If you get the chance to go to Rome, take time out to walk arond this beautiful museum, it relies solely on ticket sales and donations, or do as I did and blow the budget on curiosities and books in the gift shop!

Autumn has arrived. Last week was all sweltering heat and last minute camping trips then the storms came and swept summer away in a flash. The sun is still shining but there’s a morning chill on the school run and I have plans to make blackberry jam! I love autumn; it’s my favourite time of year. My friend Sara Crowley (sara crowley.com) posted on Facebook that the first week in September is the start of a new year; it has a new pencil case smell. I have to agree and it also means it’s nearly Halloween, which is my favourite day of the year, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

What did my summer bring? One thing I can tell you is that I only wrote 300 words in the whole season. All intentions of finishing my short story collection vanished in a haze of French sunshine and days on Brighton beach, followed by frantic preparations for my oldest starting secondary school. From Latitude Festival (which for me marks the start of summer) to September 4th I wrote practically nothing. But, aren’t writers supposed to write every day? Isn’t it a compulsion that can’t be denied? Obviously not for me. I have to admit I was quite surprised. I have written something (anything!) almost every day for a number of years. However, I didn’t start writing seriously until I was thirty-nine so I suppose I haven’t followed convention to begin with. To all those people who think you have to start when you are a tortured teen and build from there I say – Pah! (sticks tongue out and blows seasonal raspberry). It’s never too late to start; if you feel compelled just have a go. Granted, there is a lot of bad middle-aged writing out there but there’s a lot of terrible writing by people under thirty too. Good is good. And bad is bad. If you want to start writing in the autumn of your life there’s nothing to stop you, you could have fifty years of work ahead of you (think Diana Athill, Frank McCourt, Richard Adams hell, Bram Stoker was fifty when he wrote Dracula). Plus you have all those years of wisdom behind you to try and sense of it all. Autumn see, it’s a wonderful time.

Anyway, after eight weeks away from writing I have been unstoppable. Inspired by my son starting big school I started on a short story based on dramatic events at my secondary school in the 1980s. I have written 10,000 words in five days. This short story is no such thing, it is a novel, the novel I have been looking for since Starlings flew from my imagination in a little under nine months. I have characters and plots and a beginning, middle and end and no dirty great road block saying stop.

There’s so much happening elsewhere this autumn too. Brighton Digital Festival is underway. The spoken word group I’m involved with, Rattle Tales, joined in by putting on a show of global consequences. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend but it sounded amazing. Members of Rattle Tales, the audience at The Latest Music Bar and writers on Skype created a story live from a skeleton of pre-prepared words, themes and actions. There was a lot of shouting and then there was a story! The results will be posted on the Rattle Tales website later this week. Well done to Alice Cunninghame who organised and led the event.

On September 27th, Rattle Tales is helping out with the Short Story Slam at the Small Wonder Festival in Charleston. One of our founders, Lonny Pop, is hosting and members of the group with be setting the tone by reading three-minute shorts on the theme The Shovel. Believe me you want to go to this one if you can. Lonny is a brilliant host; her motto is ‘never yawn!’ There will be no chance of that , when Rattle Tales have finished it’s over to the audience; names pulled from a hat and then three minutes to delight the judges and the chance to win £100. Click here for tickets. There will be another Rattle Tales show next month, keep checking the website for details www.rattletales.org.

The thing I’m looking forward to most in the next few weeks is The Bristol Short Story Prize on Oct 19th. I am utterly thrilled to have made the short-list this year. All year, what I have considered to be my best work, has been rejected by EVERYONE, not even a sniff, no long-lists, no publications, barely even a reply until the Bristol long-list was published in July and my story What Me & Pa Saw In The Meadow was on it! Then came the email telling me I was short-listed and would be included in the anthology. I have several Bristol Prize anthologies and I think the standard and originality of the stories is incredible so I am awed to be included. I am really glad that someone enjoyed reading my story as much as I enjoyed writing it. You will be able to buy a copy on their website.

I leave you with a link to Ode to Autumn by Keats because it’s lovely. I was trying to find a version brilliantly read by a woman (because I’m sure there are some out there and you rarely get to hear one) but I want to get back to my writing and, in my humble opinion, Ben Wishaw reads it as well as it can be read.

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Starlings long listed

Starlings has been long listed for the 2012 Edge Hill University Short Story Prize in a year with a record number of entries, sharing company with entries from Edna O'Brien, Hanan Al-Shaykh and Robert Minhinnick.